The island was visited by indigenous Australians before and after its separation from the mainland, approximately 8000 years ago.[4] Stone artefacts including several weathered flakes and fragments made of igneous and metamorphic rocks and chert were collected from Barrow Island in the 1960s.[4]Thevenard Island also has evidence of Aboriginal visitation,[4] and it is likely that the nearby Montebello Islands were utilized as well, however there have been no archaeological finds from these islands.

Whalers were known to operate in the area from about 1800 onwards. The first recorded visit by whalers was in //$ with continued visits occurring until 1864. The island was used as a slave trading centre for Aborigines during the 1870s by Captain William Cadell until he was arrested and removed from the colony in 1876. Slave labour was used in the nearby mainland pearling industry.[5]

Guano was found on the island and mining began in 1883. It was mined for the remainder of the 1880s and sold to markets in Perth.[6]

Barrow Island is noted for its flat spinifexgrasslands spotted with termite mounds. While the main feature of Barrow Island’s geography is the undulating limestone uplands, the island is surrounded by a mixture of sandy beaches and rocky shores, low cliffs, dunes, salt flats, and reefs.

Due to its isolation from mainland Australia and protection afforded under its statutory status, Barrow Island is one of the most important conservation reserves in Western Australia.[7] It is an "A-class" reserve, the highest level of conservation protection available for Crown land in Australia.[8] Once a national park or class A nature reserve is made, mining leases and general purpose leases cannot be granted over them without the consent of both Houses of Parliament, and actual mining cannot take place within them without specific permission of the Minister for Environment. This occurred in 2003, when a portion of the reserve was excised in order to facilitate the Gorgon gas development program [9]

The Western Shield project has sought to reduce the impact of introduced species to the region. Corporate and state government cooperation on programs has produced studies into the little-known subterranean fauna of the island.

Oil was discovered on the island in commercial quantities in 1964 by West Australian Petroleum Pty Ltd (WAPET), and the first oil field was established shortly after.[18] In 1995, there were 430 wells producing oil and natural gas across most of the southern half of the island.[19] The site has been Australia's leading producer of oil.

In December 2009, a development consortium between the Australian subsidiaries of Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Shell received environmental approvals from the Government of Western Australia to develop natural gas reserves 60 km north of the island. Known as the Gorgon gas project, it is currently under construction (Jan 2012) and will become Australia's largest resource project, mining 40 trillion cubic feet (1,100 km3) of gas from about early 2015.[21]

^Burbidge, Andrew A (2004). "4, 5, 8, 9.". Threatened animals of Western Australia. Department of Conservation and Land Management. ISBN0-7307-5549-5. Threats: The production of oil since the 1960s has resulted in considerable pollution of the ground water ... effect this pollution has had, if any, is not known.